


Covenant

by Celesma



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel & Vessel Interactions, Catholicism, Character of Faith, Gen, Holy Communion, Mental Illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-04-13
Packaged: 2018-03-22 08:59:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,999
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3723025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Celesma/pseuds/Celesma
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>But the real bitch of it is this: despite being confronted with the indisputable, crystal-clear, one hundred-percent proof that God is no longer in His Heaven (and naught's right with the world), Jimmy still misses going to church.</i> </p><p>In which Castiel takes Jimmy to Mass and reaffirms the nature of their relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Covenant

He's been shot and stabbed and dragged all over the earth, that much is true. Been violated in mind and body, before being unceremoniously blasted apart into a nebulous cloud of atoms by a pissed-off archangel (and just as unceremoniously brought back, like a television hack resurrecting a main character on no strength other than the demands of the fickle viewing public).  
  
But the real bitch of it is this: despite being confronted with the indisputable, crystal-clear, one hundred-percent proof that God is no longer in His Heaven (and naught's right with the world), Jimmy still misses going to church.  
  
Specifically, he misses the sacrament of holy communion. He doesn't know whether to attribute that to memories of his family (he recalls, still, how it felt to sit with Amelia in the front pew and sing hymns together, what it was like to take Claire by the hand as they went up to receive, to take and eat of the crucified and risen Lord, and to know – at least then – that he was truly blessed), or to the mustard seed of real faith that remains inside him. But the longing is there, a spiritual hunger so deep and intense that Castiel finally comments on it.  
  
And because they're still looking for God, it's easy enough to find a Catholic church – easier still to arrive on a Sunday morning. Right now they're in Providence, and the weather has been unseasonably warm for a Little Rhody November, although the leaves on the various clusters of spruce and pine have long since transmuted themselves into shades of beautiful, burnished gold. Castiel has spent the last few days going up and down the (admittedly, tiny) state, possessed of angelic irritation as each place of worship fails to reveal the spark of his Father, evidenced by the dullness of the amulet that sits in the pocket of Jimmy's tan coat.  
  
Jimmy still isn't sure why Castiel agreed to this. The angel's impatience is obvious in the way his Grace ripples up and down his spine, when usually he's content to sit just within Jimmy's ribcage, like a polite squatter (although no matter  _where_ he is, there Jimmy is also; or his soul, anyway, which obediently trails after Castiel's Grace like a dog on a leash, or maybe a tail on a comet).  
  
_I would not begrudge you your need to worship, but there are other things I could be doing right now_ , Castiel says by way of explanation.  
  
Jimmy starts to roll his eyes and then remembers he can't.  _It's not like it's going to be that long._  Although he's sat through some doozies in the past, the longest service ever being Roger and Lisa's wedding fifteen years ago – they'd been pre-Vatican II types, unlike Jimmy and Amelia, and had insisted on making room for even the most obscure marriage rituals, so that by the time it was over Jimmy was about ready to jump out of his skin (along with his itchy rented tux, although that would have been doing quite a few people a disservice).  
  
Thinking about that now, actually, makes him glad he can't control his eyes.  
  
He feels a flicker of sympathy from Castiel – although it's cold comfort simply to know that the angel has lost friends as well – and then he's turning his vessel's head, regarding the trees in the square solemnly. Jimmy knows from long acquaintance with the angel's thought patterns that he's probably cataloging exactly when each leaf still clinging to the branch began to turn, when the ones scattered in clumps on the brown-gray ground finally broke off and made their individual fluttering descents. Wondering if that's what he is now, a shriveled-up dead thing slowly floating to earth. The process takes all of thirty seconds and then he turns to fully take in the sight of the cathedral, head tilted and eyes most likely squinted in an expression often mistaken for constipated (as Jimmy graciously informed him the one time he caught him looking at his reflection) but is really just very focused contemplation.  
  
_So what's the story behind the church?_  Jimmy asks, regarding each stone and the shape of the building with awe, especially the two tower-like structures stretching up towards the sky, because it's clear the church is a work of art from a bygone era. He took architectural history in college but had dropped out before they could get to the good stuff.  
  
Castiel replies immediately, as he knew he would. _This is the mother church of the Diocese of Providence. It's Romanesque. Designed in 1873 by an Irish-American architect named Patrick Charles Keely. He's responsible for the design of several of the churches in this area. The construction of this one had monetary help from a particularly hard-working bishop, although he died before it was completed. His funeral mass was the first to be celebrated here._  
  
It pleases Castiel to tell him things like this, maybe even more than it pleases Jimmy to hear it. After all, there aren't any other humans he can really talk to about math and history and science; the Winchesters are too immersed in trying to stop the End of Days to idly inquire as to the vast knowledge contained within Castiel's – Jimmy's – head. As a result, Jimmy has learned an entire seminary's worth of details concerning the historical foundation of his Christian faith: the construction of the papacy's lavish cathedrals, from the baroque basilica of Saint Peter in Rome to the gothic arches of the Notre Dame; the miracles of healing performed by the saints he's prayed to all his life (many of whom accomplished these great acts only by agreeing to be temporary vessels for angels); the sickening brutality of the European inquisitions (and the pain with which Castiel relays the details of the last makes Jimmy wonder if he was personally involved in that dark page in mankind's history).  
  
_(So Gabriel **really**  – _ _?)_

 _(Yes, Jimmy, Gabriel really was a messenger to the Blessed Virgin. He, uh, was very protective of her. I believe he called Joseph a good-for-nothing raca for daring to believe her pregnancy could have occurred out of wedlock. Among other things. He was highly... unconventional, even back then.)_  
  
People begin streaming out of a bus that has parked on the corner nearby, moving in their direction and bearing rosaries, and Jimmy figures it's time to head inside. Despite his stated impatience, Castiel lingers on the street for several more moments, watching the traffic pass by in a blur, and mutters something in his native Enochian. There's no acceptable English translation but he can feel the sentiments imbued within it, a cocktail of affection and gentle amusement, like a parent regarding their child's crayon drawings. Jimmy doesn't know which of the crude inventions of his Father's clay creations he's remarking on: the cars, or the cathedral. Probably both.  
  
A moment later he straightens up and asks  _Are you ready, Jimmy?_  
  
_Yeah_ , Jimmy replies. Castiel turns, and just as the first worshiper approaches to bid him good morning he can feel his facial muscles relax, can feel the angel retreating back inside him. It's never an experience he's gotten used to, being handed the reins back like that, and when he tries to rearrange his expression into one of return greeting the woman gives him a strange look.  
  
Jimmy sighs, releasing the breath he'd taken last Wednesday, and follows her inside.

* * *

The moment he crosses the threshold, he stumbles. It's completely overwhelming, the familiar liturgical symbols that crowd around him now, like stepping into a time even further back in the past than a mere two years ago. There are votive candles, statues, tapestries, altarpieces, stained glass, and yes, _there_ , an image of the crucified Son –

He feels Castiel haul him to his feet, then silently withdraw once more. He blinks, dazed, still struggling to take in the images. He can  _smell_ the incense, the sacramental wine. The attendant feelings of nostalgia are terrible, intoxicating.   
  
_Oh_ , he thinks, not yet knowing if the feelings threading through him are those of delight or horror, and then he says it. "Oh – " He thinks he might stumble again, or maybe just turn and bolt out of there like a spooked rabbit, but a man dressed in a deacon's vestments approaches, places a hand of greeting on Jimmy's own.  
  
"Been a while, son?" he asks kindly, and somehow the warmth of human contact, of hearing a voice completely untouched by either demonic or angelic forces, proves to be even more than Jimmy can bear.  
  
He nods, throat tight. "Yeah. Yeah, I'm... lapsed." And then laughs. How much more appropriate could  _that_ answer be?  
  
"Welcome back," the man says with a smile that conveys understanding. Then: "Have you remembered your duties before God, so that you may partake worthily of the Eucharist?"  
  
"I remembered to fast," Jimmy replies dutifully. That was the first requirement, which he'd passed with flying colors. The last time he'd eaten a full meal was half a year ago, inhaling a cheap burger dinner from some drive-through the Winchesters had taken him to the last time he'd been fully himself. (After Raphael, Castiel seemed to realize he missed consuming calories and would allow him to occasionally indulge in small treats – for example, the coffee milk and sweet potato fries at the diner in Warwick yesterday.) And as for the second –  
  
_Don't_ , Castiel says, with a force that surprises him.  _Don't explain yourself._  
  
Jimmy shakes his head as if to clear away the angel's voice. "It is morally impossible for me to make a full confession of my sins," he admits softly.  
  
_Morally impossible_  had been Castiel's designation. The angel knew Catholic dogma (as he knew all things) better than Jimmy, after all; and Jimmy couldn't see himself offering up an actual account of all his sins over the last two years to a priest.  
  
The man nods with sympathy, even as he feels Castiel's rumble of disapproval in his bones. Jimmy manages the monumental feat of dipping his fingers into the embossed bowl of holy water proffered by the deacon, and makes the sign of the cross. He moves down the aisle until he is standing before the tabernacle box containing the host and its attendant lamp, a familiar red flicker of light that reminds him in no small part of one of Castiel's multitude of eyes, that momentous night he had knocked him down like a row of dominoes, like Paul on the road to Damascus (only instead of being called out of the darkness and into holiness, it's the reverse; being called from life into a new form of death, of separation from matter, and the  _things_  that matter). When it comes time to genuflect, to kneel, he finds he can't move. He just stands there and trembles, heart thumping away inside his occupied chest.  
  
Castiel stirs within him, ready to take over, but Jimmy stills him with a thought.  
  
_No, Cas. Don't you dare._  
  
Castiel  _(Cas)_  immediately stops. Jimmy takes a deep breath.  
  
_You shouldn't be afraid_ , the angel says, and Jimmy's irritated that he's still trying to interfere.  _You belong here as much as any –_  
  
Jimmy sinks to one knee, as perfectly poised as an acrobat, his gaze pinned straight ahead, focused in its insolence. Anyone who saw him wouldn't know that he was directing that defiance within, might mistake his attitude for one of a blasphemer. As he rises to his feet and bows deeply before the adjacent altar, Castiel says:  
  
_Well done._  
  
_I wasn't looking for your approval._  
  
Castiel hums but otherwise doesn't seem annoyed.  _Did you know_ , he says,  _that in the days of Moses, the original tabernacle of God was eternally lit by holy oil? That was the work of cherubim. It was rather a difficult task for them, considering the effects of holy oil on angels, but all things considered, they did quite well for themselves._  
  
_I know that_ , Jimmy replies waspishly. _What, you think I slept through catechism class?_  
  
_I thought merely that you would be interested._

The beautiful pipe organ tucked into the side of the sanctuary begins playing then, wind driving up through the pipes to produce notes that, while only faint shadows of an angel's true voice, _do_  nevertheless bear a resemblance; and Jimmy takes a small portion of joy for the first time as he sings the _Gloria_ and the  _Kyrie_ and all the familiar hymns, hymns and songs that have existed for over a thousand years of worship. The entire time Castiel is very, very quiet – so much so that it's distracting – and Jimmy is amused and maybe even a little amazed when he finally realizes that the angel is putting forth a very concerted effort not to sing along and overwhelm the entire congregation.

 _So?_ he thinks at Castiel, once the songs and prayers finally draw to a close and the elements for the Lord's Supper are being formally prepared. _Do the bread and wine literally become the body and blood of Christ when we eat them?_

 _That question again._ Castiel sighs. _Do you really require an answer?_  
  
Jimmy stiffens, then smiles and shakes his head. No, he guesses not. That was part and parcel of the Catholic tradition: accepting that Mystery was immanent in every aspect of creation, that it permeated every fish and fowl and good red herring.  
  
Even a harried, overworked nurse. Even the part-time radio ad salesman who couldn't provide a better life for her; and before that, even, the disheveled and sunken-eyed man seeking shelter beneath the peeling awning of a Greyhound station, babbling to drown out the voices echoing from the footfalls of the pouring rain.  
  
Perhaps if he'd known that, known  _better_ , he wouldn't have said yes.

* * *

Thinking about that later, he gives a sob. It's dry and low and no one hears it, which is good because then they might think he was dying, faster than he already is. The worshipers, led by the priest, segue into the liturgy of the Eucharist proper, words both Latin and English (it doesn't matter which language they use; Jimmy understands both equally well now) falling from their lips with an ease born of participating in hundreds of such rituals. He tries to join in, to say the words with them – tries, even, to pretend that he is still just Jimmy Everyman Novak, taking Mass at St. Michael's in Pontiac like always – but his chest is locked up and his breaths are heaved up a windpipe that's suddenly the size of a drinking straw. Even Castiel's attempts to relax him do nothing to ease the hurt that rises in him like an insatiable  _(angel)_  monster, attempting to eat and digest him whole. He watches with blank eyes as the cup passes from one worshiper to the next.

When it's his turn he takes the wafer, he takes the wine. After everything else, the actual communion is remarkably anticlimactic. The body and blood taste like ash in his mouth. He swallows; the cup moves on; he's not forgiven.  
  
And really, he didn't think he would be.  
  
"You son of a bitch," Jimmy whispers.

He could be saying it to anyone. To his own selfish, stupid self – or even God. But it's Castiel who responds.  
  
_Jimmy, what you had with me was not a contract. When I made my promise to you, when you gave me your Yes, we made a covenant. That covenant is unbreakable. It is –_  
  
"I don't care. I don't care." Now there are tears, and they stream down Jimmy's cheeks, hot and unpleasant. "I shouldn't have come here. There's no place – for – for a – "  
  
He looks down, contemplates the hands that had just been opened to receive the bread of life. Those very same hands had been used to  _end_  life, too. It didn't matter that he didn't know he'd be killing anyone –  _I smite demons, not humans_  had rung like a hymnal refrain in his head through those first few days of punch-drunk uncertainty, and while that was true it didn't change the fact that demons didn't choose to be demons any more than Dean Winchester had chosen to be the Righteous Man (or the First Seal), didn't account for the slain angels and fellow vessels – or that he wasn't really aware for any of Castiel's kills, or even that  _sometimes killing is just the only way, Jimmy, the only way we can protect others._  
  
He had still been made into a weapon. Even worse: had _consented_ to it.  
  
Castiel sounds almost frantic to reassure him.  
  
_But there is. There is a place. None of God's servants have ever gone unrewarded._  
  
"Yeah, and I suppose God's watching the little sparrows as they fall, too," Jimmy whispers vehemently. He's frankly amazed that no one seems to have noticed the conversation he's apparently having with himself. He'd never quite gotten away with that before, but maybe that was because there weren't any actual supernatural creatures whispering back to him then. "Did you somehow fail to notice that God isn't  _anywhere_ , Castiel? That maybe, just  _maybe_ , He doesn't exist?"  
  
_If you really believed that, would you have come here?_  
  
Jimmy shrugs. Now that he knows the ritual holds no power for him, he's ready to leave. To go back into a world of cold and indifference, full of hunger and rough sleep and a multitude of unmet needs, back to being rented by an angel like a cheap wedding suit.  _Covenant_ , his ass. That would imply that he was some kind of equal party. Imply that he was worth something. Someone had to increase? Well, Jimmy Novak would just decrease. Easy enough. As easy as Dean Winchester's precious fucking pie –  
  
_Stop that_ , Castiel emotes harshly, tones of his angelic voice cutting into his skull and sending his soul reeling into one corner. Jimmy doesn't evince any outward reaction to that but he can sense the other worshipers draw away from him as they feel the new disturbance in the air, and the feelings of shame that descend upon him are so familiar as to be like a second skin (or a trenchcoat).  
  
He closes his eyes. The tears have stopped now, but the feelings remain, a soul-deep tattoo covering the entire face of him.  
  
"You tricked me," he says, and it's the first they've spoken of it, the first they've even  _deigned_  to speak of it, after however many months now, however many years. The admission requires a change of scenery. He picks up his coat and proceeds out of the sanctuary, projecting eerie calm, and on a perverse instinct climbs into the darkness of a confessional, as the true believers join together for the concluding Eucharistic prayers. If it's anything like Jimmy's past experience, they'll be at it for a while.  
  
_I didn't mean to. I swear to you, I didn't mean to. I just didn't understand_.  
  
"Of course you wouldn't," Jimmy murmurs. And then he says, sounding almost shy: "Your voice was so kind. It wasn't, you know. What I was used to hearing." He finds the wooden lattice in the dark and leans his head on it, as if Castiel might be sitting just on the other side and not inside him, a metaphysical curl of unease, clenching and unclenching like a beating heart. "I guess I just liked having someone tell me I was special. You know how it is. Pride before a fall, and all that."  
  
_Jimmy, you **were**_ _special. You were descended from the bloodline of Ishmael. That made you the one. You were –_  
  
"You know there was no way I could have said no to you, right?"  
  
He feels Castiel falter.  _Of course you could have said no. I wouldn't have forced you._  
  
"You really think that little of yourself? That angels and humans are just  _different, but equal_?" He barks acerbic laughter on the last three words. "No way, buddy. It doesn't work that way. Not when just hearing your voice makes me want to fall down and worship you. Not when looking at you makes other people go deaf  _and_  blind." Suddenly he wants the taste of wine in his mouth again. He wants to be drunk with it, to drown in it. He doesn't even care that it wouldn't taste like anything. It would even be better, that way. "Doesn't work like that," he repeats brokenly.  
  
_Jimmy, I made every attempt not to intimidate you. That would not have been my way._  
  
"Yeah, and you know what, Cas? That doesn't  _matter_. I was  _sick_. I was  _crazier_  – than a shithouse  _rat –_  " he's almost shouting now, and it's an effort to try and tone it down, to even care enough to make the attempt – "and I had to explain to Amelia, explain why I flushed all my pills down the toilet and was sticking my hand in boiling water, why I was turning into the thing I promised her I'd never be again. I had to watch Ames tell my little girl for the first time that  _I'm sorry baby, but daddy gets sick sometimes, and he_ ** _sees_** _things_  – "  
  
He stops, sobs bubbling up in his throat like blood, remembering the fear in his wife's eyes, in _Claire's_ eyes, as she had taken their only daughter into her arms and ushered her up the stairs. "I didn't want Claire to find out. Not like that."  
  
He takes a deep, shuddering breath and waits for Castiel's response. When it comes, it's cold.  
  
_Jimmy, you prayed for me. You prayed for me, and I was gracious enough to answer._  
  
"Yeah. I prayed for – something. Some kind of miracle, something to cancel out what I was."  _I didn't pray for **you**_ , he doesn't add, because that's unnecessarily spiteful and also not even really the truth.  
  
_I healed you. I made you discard those pills to prove your faith, and you did. Marvelously. And when you gave me your consent, you no longer had anything like a fragmented mind impeding your decision._  
  
"Maybe not. But really, what else could I do? There was no other path left for me. Not when I was such a lousy husband and father. You heard the prayers, you know the story. I wasn't bringing in anywhere near enough money – "

Castiel interrupts tersely. _I do not believe our Father ever considered material gain to be a moral good._

" _You_ try raising a daughter and holding down a household, then," Jimmy snaps. "The bottom line was that I wasn't good enough. Not good enough to get Amelia that European vacation she'd been talking about for the last – oh God, I don't know,  _five years_ , or to keep putting Claire through Catholic school like her parents wanted. We weren't even thinking about college then. Couldn't. Ames was working around the clock just to make sure I kept seeing those white-coated assholes and taking my crazy pills. And even if I didn't  _care_ about any of that, and I'd said no, and you went on your merry way, I'd still – "

His voice hitches, and he forces himself to continue. "I'd have wondered for the rest of my life if I'd let down God, if I'd just denounced my entire faith, all because I didn't have the strength to let go of my family."

A long silence answers him. Finally:

 _Is that how it was, then?_  Castiel says. Whispers, really, like if he'd lived a thousand more lifetimes it still never would have occurred to him.  
  
"Yes. At least – yeah. I think so." And then indignation, a childish fury born from the sheer  _unfairness_  of it all, claws inside his chest, threatens to supplant Castiel's presence in him entirely. He resists the urge to kick down the walls of the confessional, bring the unforgiving red light down on their head. "And not once – not even fucking  _once_  – did you  _ever_  say you were sorry. For what you did to me, to my girls – "  
  
Of course, once it's out there and in the open like that, he feels that same fury turned on himself. Castiel had only been the latest in an eternal production line of clockwork angels, each model perfected and purified in the fires of torture, a process that included ripping away strips of Grace, clinical and uncaring, like his own loathsome hands deboning a raw chicken; and he knows this, because he  _saw_  those shredded remains, saw even the echoes of the angel's  _screams_ , when Castiel took him back –  
  
"I'm sorry." His head drops in his hands. "I don't... I don't know why I said that."  
  
From Castiel he can feel dismay, and regret, and something else he can't identify but which might be the angelic approximation of heartbreak.  
  
_Jimmy?_  
  
He shudders and doesn't answer.  
  
_Jimmy, I have hurt you. How much, I had no inkling of until now._  
  
"But you wouldn't let me go, would you." And Jimmy's not asking or saying that with anger, just stating a fact. He wouldn't go even if Castiel insisted. Too much is at stake. Too much  _has_  been staked, already.  
  
_I want to. I want to._  The angel's voice is soft and understated, and yet so much like a lament, a mother keening with fresh outrage over the suffering of her child. It is a side that Jimmy has never seen before. It makes him wonder how he ever thought of Castiel as being male; it doesn't mean anything that the vessel is male, not when the noncorporeal creature inhabiting it exudes such maternal energy. He wonders if Claire had thought of Castiel as being like a mother, when the angel was with her. He hates himself a little more.  _I never imagined things would come to this. And it may be too late, but I – I am truly sorry._  
  
"I know. I know you are. I'm the one being the asshole here. I didn't... you were on someone else's hook as much as me."  
  
He senses Castiel brushing that aside like it doesn't matter. And then gasps, as he feels himself being tugged inward, leaving the darkness of the confessional, into that place where his soul resides, within the Grace of an angel; feels that same broken shell of a spirit being gathered into powerful arms, like the sense-memory of when those familiar voices, all of them coalescing as one to scream their daily invective and bile at him, were banished forever with a touch to the forehead, a soft succession of whispers floating on the empty air. Feels like an unborn infant again, enveloped in the fragile peace of its mother's womb, before it ever knew things like sickness and pain and loss.

Hears, at last,  _singing_.  
  
_Despite these things, Jimmy, I am still bound to you. I always will be._  
  
"Because of our covenant?" Jimmy murmurs, lost now in the sensations of Castiel's voice, a force unto itself in that non-space, imbued with color and form and essence and harmony, all of it mingling together perfectly and all of it too beautiful to contemplate. A single feather from one of the angel's wings, its hues dancing and finally resolving into a delicate shade of pearl, lowers to him, strokes the cheek of his soul-flesh.  
  
_Yes. Do you remember? The last thing I said to you, before I took you?_  
  
Jimmy does.  
  
_"Rejoice, Jimmy Novak, for what thou hast asked, thou now wilt receive. For God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and the things that are not to bring to naught the things that are."_  
  
_Yes. Never forget that you_ ** _are_** _special, Jimmy. Not because of your blood, but simply because of what you are. It isn't just the Winchesters fighting this war. It took great strength and courage – and yes, faith – to give all of yourself to me. And in return, I have given all of myself to you._  
  
"But I'm broken," Jimmy cries, desperate.  
  
The rest of Castiel's wing surrounds him, a soft cradle of feathers.  
  
_No. You're loved._

* * *

When Castiel finally releases him, allowing his soul to tumble from his wings with a gentle sigh, he emerges from the confessional feeling warm and dazed and very nearly newborn. All the same, he startles to find the deacon that had greeted him earlier standing in the foyer now, watching him with expectant eyes. Jimmy thrusts his hands in his pockets and does a sort of nervous shuffle – he didn't know how much the deacon had heard, doesn't want to know. He turns to leave, but the man stops him with a word.

"You left," he says. When Jimmy blinks and takes his hands out of his pockets, fingers unconsciously closing around Dean's pendant, he clears his throat as if he had intruded on something terribly private. "Before the concluding rites. I understand if you're in a hurry, but..." He makes a sweeping gesture with one arm into the space between them. His other arm still bears the bowl of holy water. "It just didn't seem right to have your first Mass in a while be an incomplete one."  
  
_He's not wrong there_ , Castiel says.  
  
Jimmy's rejoinder is  _Shut up, Cas_ , but he's smiling and his eyes have filled with tears once more. Encouraged, the deacon continues:  
  
"I would say a prayer for you."  
  
"That's very kind," Jimmy whispers. He steps forward and dips the fingers of his empty hand into the bowl, makes the sign of the cross once more. He places it over his chest at the last, the place where the angel has made his home. He thinks about seals on shoulders and hearts and closes his eyes; and for an instant, the pendant seems to pulse warmly with life.  
  
"The Mass is ended," the deacon's voice intones. "Go now in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life."  
  
And Jimmy answers, in concert with Castiel, his own small and inadequate (but beloved, entirely beloved) voice chasing the angel's glorious one:  
  
"Thanks be to God. Amen."

**Author's Note:**

> If it isn't clear by now, the mental illness that Jimmy struggles with is schizophrenia. I think there's a decent canon basis for assuming that Jimmy's experience with Castiel was not his only "episode" – the fact that Amelia immediately assumes he's hallucinating Castiel when she _just watched him put his hand in boiling water without being harmed_ is a good place to start. Throw in the fact that Amelia is able to immediately get medication without procuring a diagnosis for Jimmy from a doctor, and that Jimmy cooks pretty elaborate meals while Ames is only seen making sandwiches (implying he's the primary homemaker), and the theory starts to look a bit more plausible...
> 
> Also, the [Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathedral_of_Saints_Peter_and_Paul_%28Providence,_Rhode_Island%29) is a real church in Providence, although I've never been there. 
> 
> Finally, I apologize to Catholic readers for any egregious errors regarding the Mass (although I tried not to make any). It's my misfortune to be a cradle-to-grave Protestant who's utterly fascinated with Catholicism, but doesn't know anyone Catholic in real life to discuss the finer points of corporate liturgy.
> 
> ETA, 2-11-18: So much for that "cradle-to-grave" bit. Right now I'm undergoing the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, and this Easter I will be baptized as a Catholic in full communion with the Church. And, oh man. I made _so many mistakes_ when I wrote this story! I'm in the process of rewriting, but if you're Catholic and you encountered something that was offensive/nonsensical/completely and utterly wrong (about either the liturgy or the Mass), please leave a comment and let me know. So embarrassed. *slinks away*


End file.
